Monday, December 31, 2007

The year is coming to a close, and a new year will soon spring. As we look forward to the new year, let us recall the various events that we shared.

In 2007, we saw the birth of two new culinary institutions, the Temasek Culinary Academy (TCA) and the Institute of Technical Education (ITE). The Singapore Junior Chefs Club (SJCC) held activities ranging from enriching educational fieldtrips to companies such as Nestlé Research & Development Facility and Fassler Gourmet, to food and wine pairing sessions. Our members looked forward to the annual Tabasco HoTchef Team Challenge, proudly sponsored by McIlhenny Asia Pacific Pte Ltd in September. This is the third consecutive year the Tabasco HoTchef Team Challenge is organized, and we are proud to say that it is getting bigger and better every year. We look forward to bringing you the Tabasco HoTchef Team Challenge again in 2008.

The year 2008 will be a more challenging year for us. The Food & Hotel Asia, Asia’s largest international food and hospitality event, will be held in April. We can expect many of our members and their working establishments to be training hard and vying for the titles and medals in FHA 2008 Culinary Challenge. The much anticipated Formula 1 racing will also have its first night race in our garden city. Room occupancies are expected to soar to a record high; therefore we can expect much hard work in the month of September.

Beyond our shores, the 33rd WACS congress would be held in Dubai in May. The event will be in conjunction with 2 major competitions, the Hans Bueschkens Junior Chefs Forum and the MLA Black Box Culinary Challenge finals, of both Singapore will have representatives competing in. The Singapore National Culinary Team will also be taking part in the 22nd IKA / Culinary Olympics in Erfurt, Germany.

With these new challenges coming our way, I believe it will spur us to bring the culinary scene in Singapore to greater heights. Young Culinarians, as we bid farewell to a good year 2007, we must look forward to a better year 2008, all the best in the New Year and may we all succeed in our work hard in the coming year! Cheers!

Monday, December 17, 2007

Vice Chairman's Message

First of all, I am please to announce that SJCC has just enrolled 183 new members from four different culinary institutes, namely Temasek polytechnic, SHATEC, at sunrise and ITE. A big thank you to my team of dedicated committee members and liaison officers from various culinary institutes for the hard work contributed.

Since the club’s birth in May 2004, our challenges have become tougher each year. Besides organizing workshops, charity activities, educational trips to industry, recently we had even sent our young talents to oversea, Perth to take part in culinary competition and great result was bought back in glory. Indeed we are proud of them.

This fulfills one of the missions of the club which is to spot and inspire enthusiastic culinarians and to provide opportunities for them to explore their culinary talents and spirits through proper guidance. All these would not be achieved, without the support from SCA and various sponsors.Therefore, on behalf of the committee I would like to express my heartfelt appreciation to Chef Otto Weibel, Chef Eric Teo, Chef Jasmine Ng (former SJCC Chairman) from SCA Committee, also not forgetting all other sponsors or helpers that assisted and supported SJCC throughout the years. Once again, thank you all!

Tuesday, December 11, 2007

It was event not be forgotten. It was a dinner & dance, yet, it was a food fest, a mini rock concert! “Rock Star” Chef Eric Teo was the highlight of the moment. Imagine: Being a rock star for the night, instead of being tossed into the roaring crowd, you are gently lowered off the stage and “buoyed” around by a sea of people with hands in the air. That was exactly what happened to Chef Eric Teo, President of Singapore Chefs Association (SCA), during this year’s SCA Dinner & Dance.

The theme was black and the venue, Raffles Ballroom Swissotel the Stamford. It wasn’t surprising to see 500 Men in Black there! A cocktail reception greeted the guests and soon the doors to the ballroom were opened. However no one was allowed to go for the food until the Emcee finished his formalities of games and introduction.

There was also a pole dancer who demonstrated her prowess of pole dancing and her endless and mind blowing acrobatic stunts! It was indeed an eye opener for all. As most of the guests may not have experienced a “live” pole dancer. It was a sexy, exotic performance, yet classy and professional.

Food was excellent as always of any SCA event. You could have a taste of the world. From Sushi and Sashimi of Japan to Peking Duck of China, Sausages of Germany to Lasagna of Italy. One would have tasted the cuisines of the world in just a single event.

The reception area was lined with beautiful confectionaries. Cakes, Pies, Haagen-Dazs Ice cream! With that many sweets around, I guess everyone had to put in extra effort to burn off those calories. The highlight of the night was nothing else but the lucky draw. The grand prize was a Philip’s flat screen TV. Members had to gather in from of the stage to win the prizes. If they weren’t in front and their numbers called, their draw would still be void. There were a total of 197 prizes, which makes a 40% chance of someone winning something.

Lucky Draw Prizes!!!

At the end of the night, I believe each and everyone who attended the dinner had fun and brought something back with them. I am beginning to wonder what next year’s SCA Lo-Hei dinner will be like.

Being a committee that witnesses the birth of SJCC since May 2004 till now, I cannot deny that we faced numerous challenges all along. We always tried our best to provide the best. However, it will be discouraging to get the negative feedbacks.

All committee comes from different culinary institute, be it current students or graduates, all of us make an effort to volunteer our service to the club. We take our own time to work things out for the club. We have monthly meetings to attend, deadlines to meet, recruitment drive to run, brainstorm for new activities, execute the activities, etc…

Our main objective is to gather all young culinarians together to share their experiences at activities planned. We do not ask for much but just hope that our efforts could be recognized by members, also hoping to achieve better each time.

Everyone learn from mistakes and that is how we gain our experience too. Personally, I have seen the club grown all this years and I grown together with it. I believe we will improve further, the club will shine brightly and recognition is on its way. We will try our very best to work up to the standard.

We welcome our feedback and new ideas. Should you have anything to say it out loud, drop us an email: SJCC_Contacts@yahoo.com